


Intertwine

by havocthecat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: ATA Gene, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Wraith (Stargate)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:14:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27441775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havocthecat/pseuds/havocthecat
Summary: At least half the Athosians have the gene, but none so strongly as Teyla Emmagan, whose honeyed voice has Elizabeth melting in secret.
Relationships: Teyla Emmagan/Elizabeth Weir
Comments: 10
Kudos: 21
Collections: Femslash Exchange 2020





	Intertwine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladyjax](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyjax/gifts).



> Thank you to lunabee34 for brainstorming help, celli for meticulous SPAG editing, and shopfront for a wonderful betaread, and the denizens of the Sparktober Discord for the SGA watch parties. This story would not be the same thing without any of them.

The instant the wormhole at Stargate Command connects to Atlantis, Elizabeth feels darkness fluttering at the edges of her thoughts. She pushes it to the side. She has a speech to give and an expedition to Atlantis to lead. It's nothing. Just nerves. 

The darkness slides away into well-controlled panic as she handles scientists trying to save a city that nearly floods and soldiers evacuating an entire tribe - a nation - of people who move onto Atlantis when they learn it has been rediscovered. 

Not to mention her military commander dying within hours, the awakening of the Wraith, and then discovering the threat the Wraith pose to Earth. She needs to find more allies and food sources, and the entire expedition is stunned by the fact that the leader of the Athosian nation has an ATA gene that has Atlantis singing under her touch. At least half the Athosians have the gene, but none so strongly as Teyla Emmagan, whose honeyed voice has Elizabeth melting in secret.

***

Teyla meditates daily, both in the days before she comes to Atlantis, as well as after. It is a tradition of her people. Those of Athos who have received the gifts of the Ancestors meditate with the most dedication. The Ancestors grant further gifts to those who focus their minds and hone their emotions. Since her youth, Teyla has practiced this. Her gifts are very deep. She is a favored daughter of the Ancestors, with gifts beyond such skill at controlling the technology of the Ancestors. Atlantis lit up for John Sheppard, but the city sings when Teyla steps onto its metal flooring for the first time. 

She is, however, a favored daughter whose emotions are out of balance. It's caused neither by Atlantis nor the city's discovery by strangers after her own people have searched for millennia. The strangers are intriguing. They are brothers and sisters, sharing the gifts of the Ancestors. Sharing gifts, therefore, sharing Atlantis. Some of the Earth expedition grumbles, but Elizabeth has a cold, hard expression when those arguments against it are made. There is ice in Elizabeth's soul, ice that Teyla feels thaw when Elizabeth's eyes light on Teyla herself. 

Teyla is drawn to the control tower on many days in order to watch as Elizabeth paces in her office, deep shadows under her eyes. On this day, Elizabeth rubs her hands together to warm the chill from blue-tinged fingernails. Teyla almost offers to bring her a pot of tea, but Colonel Sheppard shows up and they go on their mission. She puts Elizabeth from her mind - for now.

Her team returns late into Atlantis' sleep cycle. The city is dark, and Teyla longs to sleep. She is walking to her quarters, trying to put their latest mission out of her mind, when she passes by Elizabeth's room. 

Her gifts bring her images from Elizabeth's nightmare. They almost fly through the air to Teyla. Elizabeth with white hair and pallid skin like the underbelly of a fish, pale and smooth, interrupted only by the characteristic cheek slits and black eyes of a Wraith Queen. 

It stops Teyla in front of Elizabeth's door. Why is Elizabeth having such terrible nightmares? Why is Elizabeth having such _specific_ nightmares? 

She cries out again, and the image blossoms behind Teyla's eyes, of Elizabeth staring down at her hands, deformed by Wraith feeding slits. Teyla feels bottomless, endless hunger, not to mention self-loathing and terror.

Before she thinks, before she can tell herself why this is all a terrible idea, the leader of the Council of Elders entering the bedchamber of the leader of Earth's expedition to Atlantis, Teyla uses the full flowering of her gift to override Elizabeth's locks. She rushes in and kneels beside the bed, her hands on Elizabeth's shoulders as she shakes her awake. 

When Elizabeth's eyes fly open and meet Teyla's, for just an instant, they are possessed of a cold, alien intelligence. For just an instant.

Then Elizabeth's hands grip Teyla's in a way that would never happen in the light of day. Not Elizabeth, so controlled, nor Teyla, the same. They are leaders, women who must set examples, not children disturbed by nighttime shadows. 

Except that tonight, Teyla's gifts have shown her Elizabeth's nightmares. Elizabeth's fears.

Tonight, Teyla reaches out with her thoughts and seeks Elizabeth's mind.

This time, she sees Elizabeth's desire. Teyla's eyes widen. Her breath hitches. She cannot keep her feelings from echoing into Elizabeth's mind and reflecting back that same desire and a longing to stay. Does Elizabeth feel the same way that Teyla does? Does she realize what Teyla is feeling?

Elizabeth's expression blossoms into a smile. She fists her hands in Teyla's shirt, ignoring the gunsmoke smell lingering in her clothing and pulling her close until their lips meet. Teyla pretends not to hear the floating thought that at least this way Elizabeth isn't looking at her palms, nor the wordless way that Elizabeth rolls her eyes - in her thoughts - in response.

If Teyla were not so busy working with Elizabeth to strip each other out of their clothing, then she would wonder just how often Elizabeth rolls her eyes in her thoughts, and how often Teyla would be able to sense that if only she were to listen. But she is busy glorying in sensation, and discovery, and they don't speak until hours later, when their clothing is strewn on the floor in an unprepossessing mess.

"I wasn't aware you possessed any gifts of the Ancestors." Teyla brushes Elizabeth's hair back with gentle fingertips and places soft kisses along her new lover's neck. If she had, Rodney most assuredly would have mentioned them. He was forever assessing the strength of his artificially-induced gift in comparison with others.

Elizabeth shakes her head. The haunted look that Teyla so loathes creeps back in. "It's not the ATA gene."

The curse to herself is silent, but Elizabeth flinches. She is gifted, whatever the source. "Elizabeth--" begins Teyla.

"Not Dr. Weir?" Even haunted, this version of Elizabeth musters a smile and a twinkle in her eye has Teyla answering with a wicked grin and a caress alongside Elizabeth's breast that is far less appropriate for decorous diplomatic relations than is expected for an Athosian Elder. 

Never Dr. Weir. Never in her own mind, where she thought she had solitude. Where Elizabeth is not calling her Elder Emmagan, nor expecting Teyla to live up to the gifts of her revered Ancestors. The things in Elizabeth's mind--

"We are only human, Elizabeth, and you are a very compelling woman." Teyla raises one eyebrow at the twist she sees on Elizabeth's lips and every thought simmering underneath this woman's surface. The protocols of Athos compel her not to delve too deeply within another's thoughts without invitation, though Teyla aches to solve the mystery that is Elizabeth Weir. 

The answering look she gets from Elizabeth is nothing to the aching skepticism that surrounds them. 

Teyla sighs and relaxes against Elizabeth's body. Skepticism is something she can overcome. How has Elizabeth not noticed Teyla's obsession with Elizabeth's figure, her mind, everything about her whenever they have been together? This gift is complementary with Teyla's own, so how could Elizabeth not have noticed?

"I don't know if you've noticed, but I do have a city to run, irritable scientists to wrangle, and that's not even counting my problem with chronic nightmares." Elizabeth's very tart-sounding, but she pulls Teyla close with a tremble that isn't feigned. 

What she and Elizabeth have begun is so new, so unlike anything that Teyla could have with those of Athos that she wants to keep Elizabeth to herself for just a little while longer. Many of the people of Earth have offered themselves to her, but she has only been interested in this one woman as her equal. 

Though what the undercurrents are that flow beneath Elizabeth's thoughts, Teyla cannot ascertain. "I meditate every day as the sun rises, and again as it sets. I would welcome your company, should you choose to join me."

She would welcome the mystery that is Elizabeth Weir to join her for so many things.

"Don't the Athosians consider meditation to be a private affair?" Elizabeth props her head on one hand. In the shadows, her eyes look almost black, not green. Elizabeth frowns as the thought passes through Teyla's mind. 

"You have much to learn of Athos. It is shared between those who are close. It is never a private affair between those who have shared pleasure." Teyla smiles at Elizabeth and draws her close. Tastes her mouth. The salt of dried sweat on Elizabeth's skin. "I would hope to share pleasure with you again."

The frisson of sensation underneath the pulse in Elizabeth's throat spirals up from under the surface and blossoms in Teyla as well, and they both sigh. 

***

As much as she might like to, Elizabeth doesn't take Teyla up on her offer. Not at first. There are too many problems that their alliance faces in this tenuous first year that Elizabeth can't pull herself away from. Not with ease. 

Then the Genii attempt to take Atlantis, and their separate struggles force them to separate coping mechanisms. Elizabeth is nearly taken as a slave by Kolya. Teyla is forced to listen to words of poisonous hatred from her oldest, dearest childhood friend, while seeing thoughts of her death at Sora's hands. The entire city is traumatized, and Kate Heightmeyer's appointment books are instantly filled up for months where before they'd only been booked a couple weeks out.

They're just too busy, and Elizabeth struggles to get her fears under control on her own, even though she longs to uncover all of Teyla's mysteries. She craves more of Teyla, her body, her mind, all of her with an ache that's buried deep in her bones, but there's an emptiness that can't be filled and after the Genii try to take Atlantis, _their city_. She's soaked through to her skin and seen Sora led to the lockup, changed into dry clothing, kicked off a celebration of life. 

Elizabeth is too tired, too afraid, to want to be alone any longer. Teyla has been gone for hours. Elizabeth is seeking her out. She's drawn to Teyla's presence like a homing beacon. They burn like lodestars in each other's minds. When Teyla meditates, she almost glows from within. Clearly there are things the Athosians haven't told Elizabeth or her people about having the gene or their history. 

When Elizabeth gets too close, she's almost hit in the face by Teyla's emotions. Loss. Anger. Grief. Elizabeth doesn't have an ATA gene - in fact, Atlantis is reticent to her in comparison to everyone else - but her command override works after a long and tense thirty seconds. She steps inside, hands in front of her and trying desperately not to wring them. 

Teyla is seated with the appearance of serenity in her quarters, cross-legged on a pile of blankets and pillows. She opens her eyes to Elizabeth's presence with a sardonic twist of her lips. "One must work one's way through the negative emotions before reaching serenity."

Elizabeth stills her mind, or tries to. Drops her hands to her side. Her stomach rumbles, and the absent thought enters her mind that she should have eaten more, but two plates of dense, heavy stew should have left her full to bursting. She steps forward to Teyla, smiles, and it widens when Teyla smiles in return, even though it doesn't reach Teyla's eyes. "I have a lot of those myself. Maybe we can work through them together."

Elizabeth was held hostage, but she isn't the one who was forced to duel her childhood friend. There had been no expression on Teyla's face when they had escorted Sora away, but Elizabeth had been standing next to her. She had felt the pain lancing Teyla's heart. Had to force herself to stay in the role of leader of Atlantis. The senior staff had needed them both to be strong. Elizabeth had to stay strong, to take command and call back the rest of the city, when all she'd wanted to do was take Teyla into her arms and hold her.

It's been hours. The overdue gate teams are back, and Peter is on watch. Atlantis is safe. Elizabeth and Teyla don't have a part to play in running Atlantis tonight. Not unless there's another crisis. Elizabeth curves her lips at Teyla in unspoken invitation. 

Teyla sits, cross-legged in what looks to be a relaxed pose, but there under her skin, is something different. It's Elizabeth who's always cold in Atlantis, with her long-sleeved shirts and jackets and constantly refilled mugs of tea. Not tonight. Tonight Teyla has a core of ice in her soul, something that Sora has left that Elizabeth has to find and thaw.

Once she Elizabeth takes a blanket from Teyla's bed and folds it into a square before settling cross-legged on it. No sense in sitting on Atlantis' bare flooring and letting the chill of from the ocean seep from the floor into her bones. She'll have to visit the quartermaster and pile three extra blankets on her own bed after this as it is.

Teyla gives Elizabeth a stern look. Something breaks free from the iceberg within her and floats in the ocean of feelings between them. "I did not invite you to stay."

Elizabeth is more familiar with these gifts by now, whatever their source. She takes a moment to study the emotional debris between them. Teyla's presence is familiar, a comfort after the wild anger of the storm and Kolya's murderous intent, even though Teyla radiates anger and grief. Elizabeth isn't afraid of Teyla's negative emotions. "I thought you gave me an open invitation to meditate with you. Or did you mean that except on the nights when we need each other the most?"

In one smooth move, Teyla lunges forward, her arms on either side of Elizabeth and an inch away from her mouth. She reaches out to Elizabeth with an intangible presence that unlocks a deeper hunger in Elizabeth. "Is this why you came here?"

It takes all of Elizabeth's self-control not to lean forward past the breath of air that divides them and kiss Teyla. She reaches up with one hand instead and places it over Teyla's heart, feeling the soft rush of blood - of Teyla's life - beating underneath her hand. Hunger rears up in her, dark and unexpected, choking her with its strength, but Elizabeth has spent her entire life learning control. She meets Teyla's eyes and lets the hunger settle. She ate before she came to see Teyla. 

"I came here for whatever you need." The statement falls away, along with Elizabeth's hand, and her sincerity echoes in the air between them.

The ice within Teyla begins to thaw. She touches Elizabeth's mind with hers for the first time tonight and her eyes widen as she sees Elizabeth's memories, open and just as raw as Teyla's. "Perhaps I have been over-hasty in my desire for solitude. Come, Elizabeth. We have been through troubled times. Let us ease our souls together." 

She places her hands over Elizabeth's, and they're warm, so warm. Teyla is a furnace after the chill of the storm that raged over Atlantis and the soaking that Elizabeth got. 

Teyla tugs on Elizabeth's hands, and Elizabeth sees an image of the two of them sitting next to each other, meditating together on in unity. She means to pull Elizabeth onto the same mound of blankets and pillows. 

Elizabeth leans forward and sets her mouth against Teyla's for just a brief moment. She craves more, everything, but Teyla puts one hand over Elizabeth's heart in a mirror of Elizabeth's gesture. It stops her cold.

Why had the Egyptians thought the heart was the seat of the soul? It must be from something older than the Goa'uld, who nested at the brainstem. What had the Ancients brought back with them when they retreated from this galaxy? It chilled her.

"Elizabeth." She meets Teyla's eyes. Even with all that they have been through, with the pain of today, there is lightness in them, and even the air around her is vibrating with a hint of unvoiced laughter. "Stop thinking so hard. That is the very point of meditation."

"We have a long way to go, then." Elizabeth knows her own mind, and Teyla's as well. She lets herself be drawn forward to sit next to Teyla, instead of across from her. The emotional feel of the room is lighter, less of a glacier that needs to be chipped away. They sit together in contemplative silence for hours, until dawn breaks through the windows and another crisis calls them to their blended people. 

***

The great ships of the Wraith have drawn ever near to Atlantis, and those of Athos and Earth look to Teyla and Elizabeth as leaders of their peoples. As saviors. The pressure wears an indelible groove on their souls. There is no time to sleep, little to eat, and yet, Elizabeth and Teyla pull themselves together night and day, stumbling from loss and grief into the next crisis. 

Leading her people hones Elizabeth as each battle hones Teyla. Charin insists that the place for Torren's daughter is behind the front lines, but there is an aching restlessness in Teyla's soul. The Ancestors did not lead this galaxy from behind. Teyla is no kind of leader to do the same.

It does lend itself to many late-night discussions of responsibility with Elizabeth. Of guilt. Fear. Things that leaders can only discuss with each other. 

"You are always hungry." Teyla fingers the lock of white that has appeared in Elizabeth's hair. It started as a single hair and has slowly grown to cover a large swathe of her forehead. Many of Elizabeth's gifts are similar to Teyla's, but with a dark, cold edge.

"It's hard to stay warm in a power-hungry city on the edge of the galaxy." Elizabeth has a sense of humor about the changes this galaxy has wrought in her. What else can she do?

Teyla gives Elizabeth a steady gaze when she quirks her eyebrow at Teyla. "You are changing, Elizabeth. I am not certain all of it is for the better."

There is a flare of anger in Elizabeth's eyes that is quickly banked. The hunger simmering in her has been growing since they first encountered the Wraith that was hidden in Atlantis' lower levels. 

"Speaking of, they're almost here." Elizabeth stares down at her hands. She has taken to wearing gloves fingerless gloves in order to ward off the chill that no one else feels. The absent thought that they have begun to ache enters Elizabeth's mind and floats through empty air.

Teyla should force her to see Carson, but none of them have time. This whole city is running out of time. The hourglass that had been slowly releasing a grain of sand at a time while Atlantis was below the water is now pouring out. Everyone feels it, but they will fight nevertheless.

Elizabeth's smile is wan where Teyla's is fierce, but there is an underlying strength to it that makes Teyla proud. "So we will."

***

Hive ships have reached Atlantis. They hover above it in silent menace. Despite being sheltered in the control room, Elizabeth can feel thousands of chill presences lodged under her breastbone, each one trying to claw its way out of her. It's a neverending fight to push them under the surface. Teyla, though she is far away, feels like the one source of warmth keeping Elizabeth going. This year that they've been cut off from everything Elizabeth has known has been more difficult than she'd known and for far stranger things than she could have imagined.

Their people have prepared for this fight. They've trained together for a year. Her scientists and the Athosian wise ones have worked side by side to learn about Atlantis. This is where they'll see how well they've learned to work together, if all the knowledge and skills developed from the past year, the teamwork learned from the Genii invasion, will save them. 

"Have faith, Elizabeth. We will overcome this trial as we have overcome all the others that have tested us to this point." She hears Teyla's voice as though they were in the room together, but Teyla is still on the mainland, overseeing the storage of the last of the harvest. The botanists and the wise ones have spent too many months together growing crops and studying the melding of their agricultural techniques to let that hard work go to waste. The data has been backed up half a dozen times, but the food will be invaluable when winter sets in.

"Get back to us." To her. To their city. "You're out of time."

There's an urgency to Elizabeth's mental voice. She can't calm it. She thinks it's because she and Teyla can't hide their own thoughts, not from each other. They don't want to. 

Earth isn't coming to save them. The people in this city are on their own.

Elizabeth stands and gives a single nod to her people. Their people. They have no idea why Elizabeth's hands ache with crippling arthritis, because she's put off every visit to Carson. They've gone from a dull ache to searing cold centered in her palms. She can barely hold her laptop, much less her stylus. 

She can sense where all her people, Athosian and expedition both, are stationed. Meditation with Teyla has honed that aspect of this strange - gift? Burden?

She feels every bright, warm spark of life in this city. She feels when the Wraith beam down. Hundreds of them. Touches her radio. "They're here. Go."

Teyla knows before the radio activates. She can hear the echo of Elizabeth's thoughts. In her mind's eye, she sees Teyla land her jumper on Atlantis' decks with less grace and care than usual - let's hope they can buff that scratch out of it, if they survive - and hop out with lithe feline grace. Marines playing security usher noncombatants away even as Wraith wearing blank masks led by one soldier, perhaps an officer, with green skin and carved in face scars rush at them. Even while Elizabeth bolts upright in alarm at a scene she can't affect, Teyla plants herself between the Marines and the Wraith and pushes her arms forward.

The Wraith are flung back and away in an arc. Shock sparks through Elizabeth and into the bond between them. Teyla is telekinetic? 

"I see you have developed your gifts further, Elizabeth, if you are now able to watch me from a distance," mutters Teyla, as her arms drop to her side. 

Why hasn't Teyla told her about the telekinesis? That isn't the kind of thing you keep from your lover, especially when Elizabeth can think of so many practical applications - in bed, out of it, especially in bed - if they survive this. 

If she can get warm again. Elizabeth reaches out, not like Teyla, not with her hands, but with her mind. She doesn't know what's happening to her, but she'll use any tool in her arsenal to protect Atlantis. Elizabeth can sense the greatest concentration of cold on her city. The Queens. They've come down from their ships to oversee the taking of Atlantis. 

They're overconfident. Elizabeth narrows her eyes and is out the door of her office before anyone can follow. Lieutenant Ford makes a move to stop her, but Rodney holds him back with a surprisingly firm hand to the chest. "Never get in Elizabeth's way. Oh, and never play poker with her either. Trust me. I made that mistake my first week in Antarctica. Just call Teyla."

If there's one other thing Elizabeth is grateful for, it's Rodney's eternal faith in her.

Elizabeth stalks out of the control room, beyond the guards. They're busy with their assigned duties and she can slide past their notice if she sits past Wraith after Wraith. The first one looks up at her and raises its weapon, and she narrows her eyes at it and _reaches_ into its mind. It stops, frozen, and lowers the weapon. It sees her as the figure from her nightmares. She can make it think she's one of them. 

She doesn't need Lieutenant Ford to call Teyla. They're already moving toward the same spot. Teyla can feel where Elizabeth is walking. They won't be apart long.

One chilling look after another after she passes by each Wraith, and none of them try to stop her. She acknowledges the terrible truth, the one that's slowly dawned on her for months. Most of them look past her because when they feel her thoughts, it's not difficult for her to fool them. They _want_ to sense her as one of them. 

She isn't human. Not one hundred percent. It's time to admit it to herself. Teyla must know. How could Teyla not have suspected? How could Teyla not have said anything? Then again, the human capacity for self-denial is a miraculous thing. Maybe Teyla hadn't wanted to admit it to herself either.

There's an abashed echo from Teyla, reaching out to her across Atlantis, and Elizabeth sighs. They'll be discussing this after the battle, should they both survive.

One Wraith, a soldier with terrible knowledge in his eyes as he looks at Elizabeth, comes toward her. She's still distracted by her thoughts of Teyla at first and hasn't stopped him from seeing her as a human. His feeding hand is raised and he tries to slam it down on her chest. 

It doesn't connect. Elizabeth grabs his mind with hers at the last second. His hand stills. She puts her hand on the Wraith's chest, over his heart. He has a heart. It shouldn't surprise her, though it does. Wraith are descended from humans.

Instead of pushing, like Teyla with her telekinesis, she pulls. It's a slow trickle at first, then a stream, then a river. 

Ten thousand years of life floods into her.

Elizabeth isn't cold anymore. She burns. She isn't hungry, she's satiated. The Wraith falls to the metal decking. His life is in hers.

She's horrified.

"Elizabeth!" Teyla's voice comes to her across the miles of Atlantis. "You have a weapon against the Wraith. Use it."

She can fall apart later. She's done plenty of work in mundane war zones. She knows this.

"There are Wraith Queens on Atlantis." The greatest concentration of Wraith are in the lowest levels and the most powerful of them are moving inward, to the rooms where the naquadah generators are located. Where they all hope that John will be bringing a ZPM back, if he can find one.

"I am with you." Teyla is a comforting presence, even at this distance. Elizabeth sees her through the miles surrounding them. 

She loses track of the halls and corridors that she walks down. She snaps orders on her radio to distribute troops away from the Queens, to take the pressure off Rodney and Radek while they do their jobs. Lieutenant Ford and Sergeant Bates are good men, and they and Halling direct the troops and hold the line for the city. 

Charin, the foremost Elder of Athos, stays in the control room, handling communications for the scientists and the civilians. Her patience and quiet good humor do much to blunt Rodney's sharpness.

The Queens are the biggest risk. Take down an opposing force's commander, and remove its will to fight. Elizabeth has seen it on Earth, in negotiation after negotiation. The Wraith are arrogant, and they believe that Atlantis is underdefended and weak after ten thousand years of sleep - and they are greedy and hungry. 

"Perhaps you should listen to your own sage advice. You ought to have stayed where it is safe." Teyla's mental voice is acerbic, though exhausted.

Elizabeth isn't tired. She's bursting stolen life. She knows what Teyla is, daughter of the Ancients. She knows what the Athosians are, but what is she? Why are she and Teyla drawn together when they are polar opposites?

These questions will have to wait. She turns and there's Teyla, her hair blown back, her eyes wide and alert and her gun at the ready. An invisible hand pushes Elizabeth back with the force of a gale for an instant, until Teyla pauses and raises one wry eyebrow at her.

"You must not surprise me in that fashion." Teyla is breathless as she lets her hands drop to her side.

"I didn't think I could." Not with the connection they have. Not with the way Elizabeth can feel Teyla's every step across this city. 

Elizabeth grabs Teyla's hands and pulls her close. Her lips are warm and she tastes of life. Elizabeth wants to lose herself in Teyla with a desperation that she hasn't felt since well before safe, comfortable Simon. If only now were the time. 

"It is regrettably not," says Teyla as she steps back and lets go with a sigh that mirrors Elizabeth's own.

They turn as one, wordless in agreement that the Wraith Queens must be dealt with, as the foremost threat to their city. 

Elizabeth can feel just how fortuitous Teyla has found their connection. She can tell everything that Teyla feels, including her shock at Elizabeth's appearance.

"They're nearby." Elizabeth flinches as the presence of the Wraith Queens collides with them. Never mind dignity. Elizabeth takes Teyla's hand with just a frisson of panic crossing her face. Her lover's life pulses underneath Elizabeth's palm. Hunger rumbles in her belly, but she doesn't ache to drain Teyla's life. 

Not Teyla. Never her beloved Teyla.

She doesn't miss Teyla's sidelong glance at that thought. Yes, they will talk about those feelings later. Among many other things, yes. If they survive.

"This way. The ZPM room." They don't have a ZPM to power the room, but it's what she and Teyla have been sending their people throughout the galaxy on a yearlong quest for. It's a great central point for the Wraith to manage an invasion from. 

"Yes. Even I can feel their minds," murmurs Teyla in agreement. Elizabeth is ever-thankful that Teyla has this gift of the Ancients, that she is the one daughter of Athos who has the ability to hear thoughts. 

Elizabeth and Teyla move as one, until the chill in Atlantis' lower levels becomes unbearable. When Elizabeth looks over, she thinks that Teyla's breath should be puffing out in chill, frozen air. She can't see a sign that Teyla feels it.

The cold is within Elizabeth again. They're at the door to the ZPM room. Teyla's hand tightens on Elizabeth's fingers, and they step inside together.

One queen stands inside, tall and slender, with skin and hair the color of puffy clouds against a blue sky. The other has the same height to her, but a more rounded figure, and hair the color of midnight. Her skin is the deep green of the barely-lit ocean.

As their gazes fall upon Elizabeth, the combined weight of their mental powers slam into her. Elizabeth's vision wavers against the malevolence in their eyes.

Teyla tightens her grip on Elizabeth's hand, and weaves her thoughts into a support. Their minds slide into an enmeshed net. They're together as one, more powerful as a unit than they ever had been separately. This woman from another galaxy, this pillar of strength, is Elizabeth's other half. 

Elizabeth feels a wash of love pass from Teyla, even as the Wraith bring the full force of their ten thousand years to bear on the two women's conjoined minds.

The storm of hunger and rage from the Wraith Queens batters against them over and over, beating them to their knees. Teyla wipes away blood that pours from her nose, but glares at the two Queens. Elizabeth's vision grays out and hunger roars in her stomach once again. 

The cloud-haired Wraith Queen hisses with something almost like laughter. She takes one step toward Elizabeth, then another, and bends low over Elizabeth, inspecting her like a specimen under a microscope. "Sister, these new Alterans have brought Wraithkin to Atlantis. Worse yet, they have brought kin to a Queen. You would think they know to slay such on sight, not take them to bed, and yet this Alteran Queen thinks she stands as an equal with us."

The midnight-haired Wraith Queen joins her sister in that eerie, hissing laughter that sends chills up Elizabeth's spine. "I thought we had exterminated those abominations ten thousand years ago. Did some of the Alterans save them when they fled in terror, or did they escape and breed like the vermin that they are?"

"You will never exterminate those who stand against you." Teyla drags herself back to her feet and helps Elizabeth to her feet as well. Her warmth and heat flares. A piece of it is inside Elizabeth, even though there are things she can't unsee. Not any longer. 

The hunger. The white lock of hair. The pervasive cold. The crippling pain in her hands. The Wraith that threatened her, and the ones that let her pass by with no challenge. The truth that Elizabeth has denied herself ever since she learned what the Wraith are bursts into her mind. 

The knowledge of what lies in her genetic code would break her, if she let it, but she is Elizabeth Weir, lover of Teyla Emmagan, leader of the Atlantis Expedition, and she will never let her city fall at the hands of these two.

She glances at Teyla. They meet each other's eyes and then turn to the Wraith as one. Teyla holds up her hand and uses her gifts from the Ancients to pin the two queens in place. 

When the Wraith Queens assault Teyla's mind, Elizabeth diverts that assault onto hers. Their hunger is bottomless and ancient, enough to dizzy her with the vortex that pulls at her. They try to possess her, and take her will over with their own, but they're two warring Queens who are only temporarily allied in the service of getting to Earth. 

Elizabeth and Teyla have an unbreakable bond, built on love and mutual respect, and their enmeshed thoughts are the pinnacle of their relationship. They are the symbol of the union between Athos and Earth: a new beginning for Atlantis. 

Elizabeth drops Teyla's hand, and even though a slight chill of air reaches her hand, it's just air. Their souls are one.

She reaches out, and places one hand gently on the midnight-haired Wraith Queen's heart, taking ten thousand years into herself, one painful year at a time. Elizabeth sees each one of those years, sleep, or raids, and always hunger and careful shepherding of food sources. Of humans. 

The cloud-haired Wraith Queen watches and struggles with increased fervor against Teyla's hold as her sister Queen's life is drained. "No Wraithkin should be able to do that. You are an abomination."

Elizabeth shrugs as the midnight-haired Wraith Queen's body drops to the ground. She tries to calm her racing pulse and the near-intoxicated feeling that comes with stealing a life. 

She doesn't like it. She'll do what she has to in order to protect her city.

The cloud-haired Wraith Queen slips from Teyla's ATA-granted gift; however, and lunges for Elizabeth. 

She jumps back with a cry, adrenaline flowing through her, but her head collides with the deck plating. Even with the burst of strength flowing through her, Elizabeth's vision goes double before resolving herself into a mass of teeth and gray eyes, and a Wraith Queen's face twisted in rage bearing down on her.

Teyla makes a sharp, quick twist with one hand, Elizabeth sees it out of the corner of her eye. The cloud-haired Wraith Queen's neck twists into an impossible angle. Her hand hovers just above Elizabeth's heart for an instant before she collapses onto Elizabeth, who shoves her off and scrabbles backward, into Teyla's arms.

"Are you all right?" asks Teyla. She brushes Elizabeth off and pulls Elizabeth's coat closer around her shoulders. 

It's not cold that can't stop her shaking. It's leftover adrenaline and shock. 

It's the fact that John, Rodney, Lieutenant Ford, Halling, and half the Marine and Athosian platoon that Halling is supposed to be commanding pour into the room with a fully-powered ZPM and discover Elizabeth and Teyla standing over two dead Wraith Queens and stop in their own form of shock instead of leaving to continue the battle for their city. 

"I'm guessing there's a story here." John says it with the slow cadence and the twist of his mouth that says he isn't sure he wants to know what it is, and does he have to put it in his report that Earth will read if they ever get in touch again?

Elizabeth smiles at him. They'll have a lot of things that Earth isn't going to like if they ever get back in touch. 

Rodney is standing in the doorway, ZPM in hand, pointing at the dead Wraith Queens and whimpering. His hand wobbles.

"Rodney!" says Elizabeth, in the voice she developed in Antarctica to shock him out of whatever train of thought he was on and get him moving to the next one. She raises one eyebrow. "I assume you're about to give us shield capabilities and allow us to win this battle?"

"Only if Major Sheppard or Teyla can get to the control room since they and the Athosians will continue their levels of major ATA gene ass-kicking." He waves the ZPM in the air, which is a major feat, since it's a large, heavy glowing piece of Ancient technology.

"Elizabeth, I must leave you." Teyla speaks, but her thoughts say she is never far from Elizabeth. 

"I'll be all right." Elizabeth turns to Rodney and gestures him to the ZPM pedestal without words as John and Teyla turn and race away, and the platoon follows along. Halling stays to escort them, a 

***

Elizabeth relaxes once they're out of danger. They survive three Wraith hive ships, only to be confronted by a dozen more that are defeated only by the combined efforts of Athosian and Earth personnel. Teyla and Elizabeth are subject to more bickering between Rodney and Radek in a week than they have in an entire year. 

She doesn't sleep more than a few stolen moments here and there for that week. She doesn't need to. Teyla's stamina comes from the Ancients; Elizabeth's comes from a darker place. They're two sides of the same coin. 

"I have always thought that was a particularly ridiculous saying of Earth. I find some of our Athosian sayings to make more sense, such as the one about not weaving together two different Nerian furs. Everyone knows it won't work and turn into a tangled mess, but one out of a hundred times you find the right combination and it is glorious." Teyla is just inside the door to Elizabeth's quarters. She leans her bantos rods against the wall and dims the lights with a thought. 

Elizabeth cracks a smile at the mental image of an apprentice weaver surrounded by thousands of wild, tangled pieces of uncarded Nerian wool floating through the air and looking very confused. She's never seen it. "When in Pegasus," she says, with a delicate shrug.

The nice thing about having a lover who can read her mind is that Elizabeth doesn't have to finish or explain her Earth aphorisms. There are other advantages, like knowing the tensile strength of Nerian wool rope without ever having seen it, or knowing the glorious way a perfectly tanned Nerian wool hide can feel against naked skin. 

"Patience." Teyla takes Elizabeth's hand and leads her to Elizabeth's own utilitarian bed and functional, comfortable bedding. 

"I've always had that. I have to with the people in this city." Elizabeth's smile matches Teyla's. _Knowing_. Brilliant. Relieved. They're together, finally, and thank goodness, death doesn't hang over their heads, for once.

"We have slain two Wraith Queens and defeated a dozen hive ships beyond that. Such a victory has been unheard of in the history of this galaxy since the Ancestors left us behind." Teyla is triumphant in a way Elizabeth has not seen her. It's an infectious, heady feeling.

Until Elizabeth starts to think about it. Make plans for the future. "That does make us a bigger target."

"Elizabeth, are you always such a pessimist?" The asperity in Teyla's voice threads through her thoughts. "We are unified. With the news of our victor, we can persuade many others to join our alliance."

All the governments of planets that had been hesitant to join them before will have their doubts swept away and all their questions answered. The only person who still has questions is Elizabeth herself. One word still echoes in her mind.

Wraithkin.

Teyla looks uncomfortable. Memories of a lifetime of Wraith hunting the descendants of Ancients blur together until she shoves them back under a layer of silence. She shifts and almost takes a step backward, but Elizabeth's hands tighten on hers with an implacable grip. She tilts her head and gives Teyla a silent, steady look, and she waits.

"There are tales," begins Teyla, in the tone of someone who has repeated the same litany many, many times. "Dark stories whispered only after all trades have been completed and the campfires have been extinguished. Wraith who were captured in war, and of some of our ancestors who were insatiably curious."

Elizabeth has never heard this story before, but she knows where it's going. Bad things happened when the Ancients were insatiably curious.

"They hoped to blend Wraith with humanity in order to blunt their hunger, but only increased it a hundredfold." Teyla bows her head to hide the grief that emanates from her thoughts. She feels the weight of her ancestors' actions, even more so now that they have access to the Ancients' database. Teyla will never give up that burden, but Elizabeth feels its weight as well. The only she hopes is that, in sharing this, they can lessen the duty each other carries.

"But why would they have taken a Wraith back to Earth with them?" The danger to the planet, much less the galaxy, would be increased exponentially with just one Wraith, and they'd continued their experiments. Sometimes Elizabeth wants to give the Ancients a good talking-to about experimental controls and ethics panels.

"Let us ask the next one that we see." Teyla short-circuits Elizabeth's train of thought with a mental image of Elizabeth lecturing an Ancient as if she were an Athosian Elder, and they both have to stop.

"If I ever Ascend, I'll make sure to do that," says Elizabeth, stifling her laughter. 

"You are made of the genes that you are made of, and your gift gives us the warning of the arrival of the Wraith, and of their queens. I would not have you be anything or anyone other than you are, Elizabeth Weir." Teyla is firm in her assertion, and there isn't any uncertainty in her mind. 

Warmth suffuses Elizabeth, not the warmth of stolen Wraith life that she still doesn't know how to explain to the rest of her people, not the warmth of a summer day on the beach, and Elizabeth basks in Teyla's gaze. In her love.

The two of them are greater as a whole than separate. 

"Yes. We are. You are a daughter of Earth, not of the Wraith, and our people are long-lost kin." At least Teyla is certain. She can persuade her people. 

"So where do we go from here?" Elizabeth smiles at Teyla. The way Teyla always thinks of the greater good, it's what Elizabeth always wanted in a partner. "Our people, yes, but also--" She hesitates, takes a deep breath and barely dares to let herself think of the word. Of the idea.

"Of us." Teyla gives Elizabeth a stern look. "We of Athos do not divorce duty and self. You are Elizabeth Weir, my consort and leader of the Atlantis expedition. There is no divide between your duty and your very self."

"Tell that to our government." Elizabeth huffs, but-- It sinks in. Teyla's consort?

"Yes. Chosen of mine and declared so to my people." Teyla's lips press on Elizabeth's, warm and soft, sweet-tasting, as if she stopped in the cafeteria before coming to Elizabeth. 

Elizabeth smiles against Teyla's mouth before pulling away. "We don't do consorts where I'm from. You're going to have to explain that one to me."

She can't picture Teyla in an American wedding dress, but Teyla's the woman she's meant to spend her life with. She feels it in her bones. If Elizabeth is honest with herself, she's felt it since the moment Teyla walked through the Stargate and met her eyes.

They survived a showdown with two Wraith Queens. They're figuring out what the synthesis of these gifts means. They'll unify their people and the galaxy and move forward against the Wraith. Together. Now and always.


End file.
